Hammering on/pulling off onto the down beat

[christianm77]

So I've been watching the new Moreno masterclass video and he discusses articulating phrases so that you pick the upbeat (the 'and') and do a left hand slur onto the beat rather than picking every note.

This reminds me of a a friend talking about 'swing bowing' on the violin, where down bow would go on the 'and' rather than the beat. It also reminds me of one of the things I like about Gypsy Picking, which is that you end up doing downstrokes all over the place, including on upbeats, which adds built in phrasing.

Anyway I've tried it out a bit and really like it. It feels great to accent the upbeat in this way, and I think I'll be able to add this into what I already do without having to radically alter my technique.

I don't like the sound of lines with every note picked any more than Moreno does and while economy picking is cool and everything, things can get a bit machine gun when you have a few notes on one string.

I've experimented with alternate picking with the downstroke on the off beat and that's a good one, but I don't alternate pick ATM.

Anyone articulate this way?

There's a lot more to the video, and I would highly recommend it.

[dortmundjazzguitar]

isn't this pretty much the norm? all players i've transcribed play more or less like this. players with a rock background often do it the other way around, which sounds very bad to my ears.

good book on the subject:

https://www.amazon.de/John-McNeil-Tr.../dp/B00D7I3LLC

[christianm77]

isn't this pretty much the norm? all players i've transcribed play more or less like this. players with a rock background often do it the other way around, which sounds very bad to my ears.

good book on the subject:

https://www.amazon.de/John-McNeil-Tr.../dp/B00D7I3LLC

What players have you transcribed? Guitar players I mean - horn players tend to use this phrasing obv.

(I pretty much pick every single note ATM. Comes from the need to project acoustically.)

EDIT - not that I necessarily think that you can't use left hand ligado a bit and still project. It's kind of the culture of that type of picking, the GJ machine gun thing, which I think sounds a bit naff on electric.

[PMB]

From what I've heard, Moreno sounded almost identical to Pat Martino when he first arrived in NY so he obviously had a rethink about articulation somewhere along the way.

Christian, if you haven't experimented before now with weak-to-strong beat phrasing (I've got to say that surprises me given your love of bebop), I suggest checking out Randy Vincent's book, The Cellular Approach. The exercises are all musically strong and there's the added benefit that they are all laid out in the manner you've described - slurs from the 'and' to the following downbeat.

[nick1994]

This has been something I've been working on for about three years now. Check all the slurring guys metheny jim hall sco...they all do it most lines will start on an off beat to initiate slurs onto the beats

[christianm77]

From what I've heard, Moreno sounded almost identical like Pat Martino when he first arrived in NY so he obviously had a rethink about articulation somewhere along the way.

Christian, if you haven't experimented before now with weak-to-strong beat phrasing (I've got to say that surprises me given your love of bebop), I suggest checking out Randy Vincent's book, The Cellular Approach. The exercises are all musically strong and there's the added benefit that they are all laid out in the manner you've described - slurs from the 'and' to the following downbeat.

Well no, it really hasn't come up before, for a number of reasons. I think these are quite interesting, so I'll talk about them in a little depth...

Would I be right in thinking that as a player you come from an electric alternate picking background, and have moved into upbeat slurring from there? Just a guess...

For me...

a) I'm getting better. This issue (off-beat placement) was flagged in a lesson a few years back, but I wasn't given technical advice on it, just musical advice. TBH I think at that point everything was projection to death so I probably wouldn't have followed that advice because I was thinking mostly about GJ picking at that time.

My teacher was a student of Jesse Van Ruller, so I think he is heavy down on the beat, up on the off beat picker.

(Also there are fewer upbeats in swing era phrasing and this is the type of music I was playing at this point.)

b) I have in fact been using upbeat accentuation (using my technique you can't avoid it) and have been aware of the need to accent the upbeat for a few years. GJ (and Benson) picking has the articulation built in. So I was intuitively choosing fingerings that swung, but not consciously working on technique/articulation from the point of view of the left hand.

I actually think this is the way that players have done this traditionally (during 30s/40s/50s) a tradition to me represented by Charlie Christian, Barney Kessell, Herb Ellis etc - hence my question to dortmundjazzguitar.

c) Few players I have transcribed on guitar uses this type of slurring. But bear in mind the guitarists I have transcribed are pretty damn old school. My main bop influences have been horn players. Also, in the more modern players I have checked out, it's likely that I simply missed this technique when it was being used as I wasn't listening out for it.

Players like Chuck Wayne and Jimmy Rainey represent a break with that tradition AFAIK. I see this tradition as being refined, under the influence of fusion/rock guitar, so essentially we now we have Gambale/Holdsworth influenced technique applied to bop language. Even Grasso is part of this new movement IMO.

In ealier players, to my ears the upbeat lilt is still there but differently expressed. Until around two years ago I was a heavily arpeggio based player, so the natural 'lilt' of economy style picking (mostly going up) and the fingerings I was using to play enclosures etc. This is perhaps the reason why this is the classic way to learn jazz guitar.

Now, when I listen to Pat Martino, I hear plenty of upbeat bop phrases. It's a different solution to the same problem. But I happen to prefer the Moreno sound, and I would like to see if I can get it working even in my more acoustic playing.

However, now I've been playing a lot more stepwise scales, listening to my playing on 'hot' numbers, two things have left me unsatisfied with my playing.

1) how 'picky' things get at fast tempos
2) how on the beat things can get.

Even if you GJ or Benson pick, you will arrange scales so that you basically end up alternate picking most of the time. As a result, the issues become the same.

So I think this type of technical work will help.

In any case, Moreno suggests working directly with bop heads (stuff you can use on gigs) and transcribed material, rather than exercises, so I think that's what I'll do. Especially as I have no shelf space left :-)

Thanks for the heads up on the book though.

[dortmundjazzguitar]

What players have you transcribed? Guitar players I mean - horn players tend to use this phrasing obv.

mostly wes, grant green, early martino, overgaauw, rodney jones.

wes is the most obvious example.

[christianm77]

This has been something I've been working on for about three years now. Check all the slurring guys metheny jim hall sco...they all do it most lines will start on an off beat to initiate slurs onto the beats

These are the guys I haven't transcribed ;-)

[christianm77]

mostly wes, grant green, early martino, overgaauw, rodney jones.

wes is the most obvious example.

Are we talking about slurring or accentuation? I'm specifically talking about the use of left hand hammer on/pull off's with reference to this. Accenting on the upbeats is something I've been bearing in mind for a while.

To me Wes's phrasing is kind of built in to his left hand fingerings, very much like Charlie Christian. At least I find that when I try to play his lines with my thumb. They fit GJ and GB picking very well for obvious reasons.

It's possible that you could come up with the same fingerings for different reasons. Also if you hear a phrase, sing it back and intuitively work out a fingering that 'feels right' you will end up with the articulation in there. I kind of feel this might be how Wes approached phrases, but I'm happy to be proven wrong!

Which is not to say that you can't refine you instincts. And also some things are hard to execute without a bit of thought. I certainly find some very hard limits with GJ picking. Less so with GB picking...

EDIT: which is not to disagree with what you are saying - actually now I have an idea of what to listen for, I'm going to go over some of my transcriptions and listen out for this.

[christianm77]

TL;DR I now feel a bit stupid for missing this, but I'm glad to have something concrete to work on that will improve my phrasing :-)

[dortmundjazzguitar]

Are we talking about slurring or accentuation? I'm specifically talking about the use of left hand hammer on/pull off's with reference to this. Accenting on the upbeats is something I've been bearing in mind for a while.

To me Wes's phrasing is kind of built in to his left hand fingerings, very much like Charlie Christian. At least I find that when I try to play his lines with my thumb. They fit GJ and GB picking very well for obvious reasons.

i'm talking about slurring into the beat (and to a lesser extend hammering-on or pulling-off). to me it's the butter and bread of bebop phrasing.

[christianm77]

i'm talking about slurring into the beat (and to a lesser extend hammering-on or pulling-off). to me it's the butter and bread of bebop phrasing.

Using hammer ons/pull-offs in a conscious way to assist the slurring into the beat is the bit that's really new to me...

In terms of phrasing, I saw it as playing phrases evenly and avoiding accentuation unless specifically required - if anything you accent the upbeats to counteract the natural tendency to accent the beats, not because you want accents per se. It's a corrective measure.

Easier said than done with GJ picking, but in this case, natural accents will pop out, so it's a matter of finding a good left hand fingering for each phrase. Because of this position playing is not desirable.

Which is one of things described by a few people as a disadvantage - lack of 'flexibility.' I don't see it as a drawback, because I don't ultimately see improvisation requiring that type of flexibility. I think it's a blind alley, at least for me.

Actually what Moreno teaches is not a million miles away from this ethos - find a good fingering and position for every phrase.

He even favours downstrokes only for medium tempo playing, which is pretty old school. :-)

But slurring with LH ligado gives a very nice feeling to phrases, I have to say, and I do think it's much more hornlike. Could it be my playing has entered the late 20th century?

[pamosmusic]

Anyone articulate this way?

Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes.

I spent a long time retraining myself to slur into downbeats. Love that sound. I've also gotten to the point where not only do I slur into downbeats as often as possible - but also accent the upbeats super hard. Love it.

[pamosmusic]

Actually way back in the day someone was having an argument about rhythmic swing and I said that I actually think this is a really big part of swing (for whatever that's worth) - and was told, if I recall correctly, that various members were disappointed that someone such as myself would subscribe to such a "high-school jazz band" concept. I was, however, undeterred.

[christianm77]

Actually way back in the day someone was having an argument about rhythmic swing and I said that I actually think this is a really big part of swing (for whatever that's worth) - and was told, if I recall correctly, that various members were disappointed that someone such as myself would subscribe to such a "high-school jazz band" concept. I was, however, undeterred.

Well, you can say it's good enough for Mike Moreno, so it should be good enough for you :-)

TBH I think the reality is always more complicated, but practicing simple concrete things is a really good idea. Ultimately you want to refine your control and your perception.

Furthermore, I think what's a 'high school band' concept for horn players might be something guitarists might not have come up against. Horn player's phrasing tends to be developed by playing in high school bands, and then developed further in college and professional section and band work. Unfortunately, I feel like we lag far behind as we are the dudes going chonk chonk chonk.

[mr. beaumont]

Actually, this one of the very few things musically that came natural to me!

[pamosmusic]

TBH I think the reality is always more complicated, but practicing simple concrete things is a really good idea.

Of course .... The beauty is that it is simply not possible to slur into every downbeat so it's really just about making the choices. So you're never left with the illusion that it could be some sort of grand principle ... it just works when it works and doesn't when it doesn't. The hard part of the practice is figuring out where it's worth it to change a fingering for the slurs. Truthfully I basically never compromise a good or intuitive fingering to be able to slur every down beat. Slurring into 40 or 50 or 60% is more than good enough. I practiced it by just playing my normal box pattern scales and all of my bebop heads. I'd just go through them and slur them where I could and not worry about it when I couldn't. Good training for sort of picking out the spots where it works. I do not use it as a sort of overarching principle but more of a high priority thing that I do whenever possible ... but weighted behind good fingerings and such.

[Nate Miller]

this is real big in Irish music, slurring into the beat

I don't think about these sort of mechanical details when I am playing jazz, but if I just play it the way I hear it, then yea, I'll do this

[rcpj]

Yep slurring onto the beat is absolute fundamental must for good phrasing in my opinion

As a thumb +fingers man all my life, it just came naturally..as I think it does with most fingerstyle / thumb only players..

[jbromusic]

From what I've heard, Moreno sounded almost identical to Pat Martino when he first arrived in NY so he obviously had a rethink about articulation somewhere along the way.

he sounded like kurt rosenwinkel back in the day (2002-ish)

[David B]

Just adding in a clip from the Moreno lesson that Christian references for anyone who wasn't aware of it.

[Nate Miller]

he sounded like kurt rosenwinkel back in the day (2002-ish)

"back in the day" was 2002???

krikey, I'm getting old.....

[joe2758]

I feel ya Nate, I just turned my definition of old in may

[PMB]

Well no, it really hasn't come up before, for a number of reasons. I think these are quite interesting, so I'll talk about them in a little depth...

Would I be right in thinking that as a player you come from an electric alternate picking background, and have moved into upbeat slurring from there? Just a guess...

For me...

a) I'm getting better. This issue (off-beat placement) was flagged in a lesson a few years back, but I wasn't given technical advice on it, just musical advice. TBH I think at that point everything was projection to death so I probably wouldn't have followed that advice because I was thinking mostly about GJ picking at that time.

My teacher was a student of Jesse Van Ruller, so I think he is heavy down on the beat, up on the off beat picker.

(Also there are fewer upbeats in swing era phrasing and this is the type of music I was playing at this point.)

b) I have in fact been using upbeat accentuation (using my technique you can't avoid it) and have been aware of the need to accent the upbeat for a few years. GJ (and Benson) picking has the articulation built in. So I was intuitively choosing fingerings that swung, but not consciously working on technique/articulation from the point of view of the left hand.

I actually think this is the way that players have done this traditionally (during 30s/40s/50s) a tradition to me represented by Charlie Christian, Barney Kessell, Herb Ellis etc - hence my question to dortmundjazzguitar.

c) Few players I have transcribed on guitar uses this type of slurring. But bear in mind the guitarists I have transcribed are pretty damn old school. My main bop influences have been horn players. Also, in the more modern players I have checked out, it's likely that I simply missed this technique when it was being used as I wasn't listening out for it.

Players like Chuck Wayne and Jimmy Rainey represent a break with that tradition AFAIK. I see this tradition as being refined, under the influence of fusion/rock guitar, so essentially we now we have Gambale/Holdsworth influenced technique applied to bop language. Even Grasso is part of this new movement IMO.

In ealier players, to my ears the upbeat lilt is still there but differently expressed. Until around two years ago I was a heavily arpeggio based player, so the natural 'lilt' of economy style picking (mostly going up) and the fingerings I was using to play enclosures etc. This is perhaps the reason why this is the classic way to learn jazz guitar.

Now, when I listen to Pat Martino, I hear plenty of upbeat bop phrases. It's a different solution to the same problem. But I happen to prefer the Moreno sound, and I would like to see if I can get it working even in my more acoustic playing.

However, now I've been playing a lot more stepwise scales, listening to my playing on 'hot' numbers, two things have left me unsatisfied with my playing.

1) how 'picky' things get at fast tempos
2) how on the beat things can get.

Even if you GJ or Benson pick, you will arrange scales so that you basically end up alternate picking most of the time. As a result, the issues become the same.

So I think this type of technical work will help.

In any case, Moreno suggests working directly with bop heads (stuff you can use on gigs) and transcribed material, rather than exercises, so I think that's what I'll do. Especially as I have no shelf space left :-)

Thanks for the heads up on the book though.

I move between 'economy' and alternate picking - I've never really investigated the GJ thing - but I don't think that's ever interfered too much with my R.H. slurring onto the beat (I'm left handed, btw). As Hal Galper pointed out in his book Forward Motion, Bach's music is traditionally phrased with the '1' being a point of arrival rather than departure. Having grown up listening to a lot of Bach and as it happens, the Irish jigs and reels mentioned in Nate's post, it just seemed natural for me to phrase that way.

You're right about Jimmy Raney and Chuck Wayne. Check out any Raney clips on YouTube (including the ones I put up there years ago where he's working with Cal Collins) and you'll notice that he tended to play along rather than across the neck to facilitate slurring onto downbeats. Likewise, Chuck Wayne changed from being a Charlie Christian-style player to a Parker devotee overnight after witnessing Bird in a club in the mid-'40s. In fact, CW said that the experience was so galvanising that he had two choices: either give up or totally revise his approach to the instrument. Hence, his development of 3-note-per-string scales and what he named 'consecutive-alternate' picking, a method that provided the basis (unacknowledged by most) of 'sweep picking'. I wrote a book of Chuck Wayne transcriptions - as yet unpublished - with the assistance of Chuck's widow, Diane who provided me with all of Chuck's manuscripts and sketches, so I got heavily into his world for a year or two.

While I like Randy Vincent's book a lot, nothing beats transcribing bop heads as Moreno suggests. I always work directly from the recordings and try to keep the phrasing intact as much as possible without having to make too many physically awkward moves. Here's my transcription of Anthropology to give you an idea:

[Hep To The Jive]

Thats the only way I can play. I cant pick fast enough otherwise, unless its a surf style tremelo picking. Thats funny, because I really like GJ and Django, and I love playin GJ tunes, but as far as technique, what Moreno or Scofiield doing comes much more natural to me. And I believe it's more versatile and more dynamic technique too.